BRAILLE Tablet for visually impaired to revolutionize 285 million lives

1 min

Braille tablet for visually impaired Scientists is being designed at the University of Michigan, USA. Brent Gillespie; Alex Russomanno; Mark Burns and Sile O’Modhrain are working on this project and hope to present a Braille tablet at the end of this year.

Why is it being made?

This is being done because until today no braille tablet for visually impaired is available on the market. Current Braille readers that work with tablets are attached to the tablet and present only one line at a time to the user.

This makes it nearly impossible for the person to skip the irrelevant material. Skimming is an art in reading which saves much of the reader’s time and helps him in reaching the desired content at once. This is done by sensing the objectivity and relevance of the material with the desired content, and the reader stop reading or continues reading based on the sense.

What is skimming?

Skimming is an art in reading which saves much of the reader’s time and helps him in reaching the desired content at once. This is done by sensing the objectivity and relevance of the material with the desired content, and the reader stop reading or continues reading based on the sense.

What is Available?

For visually impaired, brail readers do not work that way. Hence, they are unable to take full advantage of the material present on the internet for reading and gaining required knowledge. Braille Tablet for Visually Impaired is a solution to this.

O’Modhrain, who is he?

Interestingly, the project idealist is O’Modhrain, who is himself a visually impaired person. The main flaw he sees in current braille readers is that they are unable to read images. But this braille tablet will solve the purpose.

In a statement, the team said, ” Technology has taken enough boom to allow us for a full-page Braille screen that refreshes like a tablet.”

Price of the braille tablet for visually impaired

Currently, a single-line Braille reader is available in $3,000. Approximately equal to Rs 300,000. For converting the current system to full page potential, the cost will rise to $55,000 or 55 lac rupees. To tackle the price issue, the scientists are making their device with microfluidics.

Microfluidics is the science and technology of manipulating and controlling fluids, usually in the range of microliters (10-6) to picoliters (10-12).

This technology is helping scientists to design a full-page braille that refreshes like a tablet and will cost around $3000, much closer to the single-line reader.

Scientists and educationist around the globe believe that if successful, braille tablet for visually impaired will change the lives of 285 million such people in the world.